clay shooting can be broken into 3 catagories, competitive, informal, and recreational.

competitive: is advanced shooting where trophies and titles are pursued with score sheets and referees. its highly regulated and pretty expensive.

informal: is where skeet is a social event, where hunters brush up prior to hunt season, friends challenge each other, or the curious give the game a whirl. though its regulated, the pressure of losing is not present.

recreational: is where shooters with little experience go to walmart, buy a box of shells, a box of targets, a portable or a hand thrower, pull out grampas old gun in the closet and go in a field and blast away. it is the least regulated and in some senses, its the most dangerous.

ranges come in 2 catagories....public and private.
public is pay as you go and private requires dues to maintain the range.
public ranges tend to be more dangerous than private. in private ranges you must pass indoctrination, hold training cards to known national shooting associations(NRA - NSSA,) and be voted in.
in public its hail mary from the moment a car pulls in the lot.
my range is public by invite only, being its on my property i maintain total control at all times. its used both for competitive and informal shooting.

what ive done is i dropped the iron curtain and allow total beginners to peek into what in many cases is a closed society....allowing new shooters to test drive the sport prior to commiting to expensive memberships and shooting costs.
nationally, a game of skeet is anywhere from 3.00 to 12.00 depending on location.
public ranges tend to be cheaper and private ranges only tend to be cheaper after spending bundles on annual memberships. private ranges with high costs are usually designed to shun or discourage certain classes, namely the socio-economic classes. simply put, its a form of segregation.

best way to explain skeet is....think golf. recent trends show skeet ranges are trying to model themselves after golf.
case in point:
you have a club house.
you have a local pro.
you have a pro shop.
you have pullers (caddys)
you can tip pullers.
some clubs have taverns now.
you have range fees.
you make tee-times.
you squad up with other shooters.
some even have golf carts to get to your field.

public ranges are basically... you sign a waiver saying you wont kill yourself or others, review safety rules, pay, shoot...and go home.
on public ranges your fellow shooters can be anyone from 'what end do i point' to pros practicing, to husbands teaching wives, to tacticool owners wasting ammo trying to hit moving targets, to oldtimers with 10 year old grandsons.
games move slower on public ranges as everyone endures each other.
on competitive ranges, 4 games can be played in 90 minutes.
at the ftf shoot and hoot in comparison, it takes about 4 hours to shoot 5 games.

utube actually has a negative efffect sometimes. people with no experience try to educate themselves and show up at ranges thinking they know what they are doing.
its sorta like video games...where people think they can actually fly an airplane. lol.
way back when video games came out in real life 'arcades', people would spend a fortune dropping coins in to learn a game. the reward was high scores and respect.
but then someone cashed in on writing booklets on how to beat the game. result? guys who played the game maybe 3 times could whip those that took years to learn.
maybe i could have bought a k80 if i didnt spend so much on 'tron' and 'tank.' lol.
such is modern life today. with internet...everyone is an expert now....in their own eyes....and move on to something else, making anything eventually a bore...not choosing anything as special or unique.
i never liked short cuts. still dont.
just my 2 cents.

1. What are your favorite types of targets to shoot at?
2. What targets do you tend to struggle with?

I was having problems w 35-40 yd crossing tgts. Saw it at 5 Stand at LL Bean's Sporting Clays. lead is 4.5-5" for me or wee bit more than station 5 in Skeet. I try to break down leads in reference to leads I know.

utube actually has a negative efffect sometimes. people with no experience try to educate themselves and show up at ranges thinking they know what they are doing.
its sorta like video games...where people think they can actually fly an airplane. lol.
way back when video games came out in real life 'arcades', people would spend a fortune dropping coins in to learn a game. the reward was high scores and respect.
but then someone cashed in on writing booklets on how to beat the game. result? guys who played the game maybe 3 times could whip those that took years to learn.
maybe i could have bought a k80 if i didnt spend so much on 'tron' and 'tank.' lol.
such is modern life today. with internet...everyone is an expert now....in their own eyes....and move on to something else, making anything eventually a bore...not choosing anything as special or unique.
i never liked short cuts. still dont.
just my 2 cents.

YouTube is totally full of it. Even the "reputable" tacticool channels sell bologna by the ton. One example is MAC. I know it has many fans, the hosts talk the talk, look special (forces), just the same. I am sure it is the same in the shotgun department. You Tube is not even Wikipedia, therer is no peer review.

To get back on guns...since my first post on this thread, where I talked about the Browning Citori...I now have other guns, longer guns. I shoot a .20 GA Caesar Guerini Summit Sporting with 32-inch barrels. I've upgraded since the Citori. The Guerini is a NICE shotgun. I also shoot a .12 GA Beretta A400 Xcel Sporting with 32-inch barrel and the Kick-Off system on the butt. That big blue Beretta is my favorite gun. It's a clay crushing machine and at $1,650 was worth every cent. So, flashing forward, I now say this 'sporting clays' version Beretta is my recommendation for the 'best sporting clays gun'.

1. What are your favorite types of targets to shoot at?
2. What targets do you tend to struggle with?

Quote:

Originally Posted by indy36

To get back on guns...since my first post on this thread, where I talked about the Browning Citori...I now have other guns, longer guns. I shoot a .20 GA Caesar Guerini Summit Sporting with 32-inch barrels. I've upgraded since the Citori. The Guerini is a NICE shotgun. I also shoot a .12 GA Beretta A400 Xcel Sporting with 32-inch barrel and the Kick-Off system on the butt. That big blue Beretta is my favorite gun. It's a clay crushing machine and at $1,650 was worth every cent. So, flashing forward, I now say this 'sporting clays' version Beretta is my recommendation for the 'best sporting clays gun'.

Sent from my iPhone using Firearms Talk

Big Blue - w Parallel comb ? 32" is long on an auto but I kinda like them on O/U. Get all that weight fwd moving and it follows through by itself.

30" is my current favorite - Extended chokes add about an inch or more.

Do you reload for the autos or rely on factory ammo ? Autos can get touchy about ammo and have reliability issues. Winter can be especially hard. O/U have the advantage w reliability and especially w light loads.

The A400 I bought is not the parallel comb version. To me, that's more of a trap gun. I have the flat rib, not stepped. A 32-inch barrel on an auto IS long (especially when it's in the rack next to 32-inch over/unders) but I don't notice it when mounted. It's balance is perfect and it shoots flat. The Kick-Off takes just about all the recoil off. The Beretta was listed in both "Field and Stream" and recently in "Shooting Sportsman" where they said it's the easiest gas gun to clean, ever, and that it will fire ANYTHING you feed it. Both have been my experience.

I have the 391 - I'm trying to think how much the gas system changed. They tweaked piston - called it self cleaning... I don't consider the system easy to clean.

Great marketing though. In Beretta's catalogue - they listed the parallel comb 391 as there Sporting Clays model & entry level competition gun. The theory was no matter where you put your head, it would still be on line w sighting plane. 10mm rib. Pretty sure they lied - as it shot 70/30 ie Trap Gun.